Geeky Babble: Con.ect 2023

This year's Con.ect seemed a little smaller than last year, but I don't know whether there's truth to that statement or not. There was definitely more marketing, more hype about the stalls that was going to be there, etc. That said, I enjoyed both days and felt a little overwhelmed on Saturday by the amount of people that rocked up.

When things were still quiet...

I decided to support the convention with a VIP ticket. I heard there was going to be a goodie bag and was pretty hyped about the idea... That didn't pan out exactly. The bag had a decent looking Con.ect hat and pin, and an energy mixer. But otherwise it was just filled with business cards. A missed opportunity, I think. 

As is the custom now with this convention, there were a large number of cosplayers. I didn't snap a lot of pictures of them, but did get two that I thought was rather well done.

Cosplay of For Honor character

Cosplay of Reverse Flash

Bubbly goodness!

I also got to try out 'Bubble Tea' though admittedly, I avoided the tea part and went for a fruit slushie. Still, really good! If they return next year, I'll definitely be another soul who stands in the queue for them. 

I didn't buy a lot of stuff, some armbands, dice (of course), and a little dragon statuette. I did end up buying a lot of food-related things. On the dice baggie that I got was a website link, which I promptly followed and found more stuff to splurge on. 

As mentioned above, contrary to last year, there were dice to be had this time! I went for the most legible which ended up being the cheapest. I also tried to ask for Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse, but it wasn't available for purchase. The first vendor I asked had a whole bunch of D&D books, but was absolutely bewildered by the question. Poor thing. The second was less bewildered but also not any more helpful. I'm also worried as to how much it would have cost had it been there. Book prices have sky-rocketed to something crazy. It's okay though. I have it on DnDBeyond, so it was more a collecting thing than a 'I need to have it' thing.

The Dune RPG handbook's price was absolutely shocking. Good thing I bought the pdf and that pdfs are a thing that can be purchased, because I would never be able to justify the price that the printed book was going for.

In any case, Con.ect seemed to have been a success with a lot of people arriving and partaking in what they had on offer. 

Cutesy dragon statuette

A brief update: I'm doing it again!

I don't have much to report this month. Things have been very much the usual tedium of working till I can escape and escaping until I have to go back to work. That said, I have been up to some shenanigans in that I've started Streaming again.

Every Wednesday at 20:00 GMT+2, I stream on Twitch for about an hour. The streams are very low key and calm. I sit and play Colostle by myself (babbled about the game on my blog here) and throw in ideas from those who watch. It has been fun. I've had about four sessions so far and the story is progressing steadily. Don't get me wrong: The writing is sub-par from my side as I just sit and waffle, but that doesn't really matter. It's still fun and good practice and that is part of why I do it.

I've been given a lot of guidance from my friend Discarded Dork and they've been kind enough to actually assemble these incredible layouts for the stream too.

I'm still learning the ropes - streaming, writing, writing while streaming, using OBS Studio, etc. But it's going well and that's all that matters.

I don't know what I'm going to do for nanowrimo with regards to the stream. Seeing as 1 November falls on a Wednesday, I feel like it is a good opportunity to actually do like a stream for it... 

I don't know. Much to think about.

DnD Prep Stats babble

One of the weird and wacky things I decided to do in the beginning of the year is to start logging how much time I spend prepping and playing D&D games.

The motivation behind it was to see what I could work on to help fight back against the last-quarter-of-the-year burnout I have endured the past couple of years. I had to be realistic and I had to make liberal use of my scalpel in an attempt to trim down on how much time I spend in and around games. And I was somewhat successful. I've trimmed down how many games I play in and how many games I run. 

Besides cutting things down to size, I kept a monthly log of the number of hours I spend prepping. And... It's a lot. Even having cut things down, I spend a ridiculous amount of time prepping my games. Considering how liberal I was with that scalpel, I can imagine why previous years have been so exhausting.

Things I've included as prep are map making, summarizing previous sessions, reading certain materials that involve D&D (like The Griffon's Saddlebag for magic items), and everything that basically took longer than 30 minutes to do. That was my mark. So if I only spent a minute on something, I didn't log it... which probably means I spend even more time than I have logged but I figure 30 minutes makes sense.

So without further ado, the most recent results:

Homebrew refers to everything prepped for my two homebrew games... it's definitely what I spend most of my time on. Oneshots are sessions that conclude within one or two gatherings - I haven't done a whole lot of those, and it's interesting that it takes between 2-3 hours for me to prep them. Written adventure specifically relates to my Dragon Heist Campaign which has now been concluded. I'm fiddling with the idea of possibly running Phandelver and Below in a year or two... we'll see. And then Other refers to things like making maps for other people or fiddling on World Anvil (which I'm admittedly struggling with, but I'm trying to use. My brain hasn't figured it out yet).

What I found particularly interesting about this logging exercise is the very visible ebbs and flows that naturally occur without my pushing myself. Some months I'm excited and full of ideas. Other months I'm lazy and tired. My games don't become more or less. They remain fairly constant. And yet, I still have more than enough material to supply... well sort of. I still feel like I don't have enough material, but I think I'll never stop feeling like that.